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Friday, January 15, 2016

Holidays Behind Us..2016 Head

Friday, Jan. 1st 2016

Usually, New Year’s Day for me is a quiet day sitting at home, maybe watching a parade, a football game or visiting relatives. What we did here, was to go to our Bocce court for a game. This was pre-planned from the week before. Sharon, Georgio’s wife's sister was coming to town. Sharon and Georgio are locals who run the Bocce games for us “rv-ers”. Sharon wanted to have her sister see and play Bocce, so Bocce was scheduled for this day. We had a good turnout and both Helen and I won each a game. Helen, scored the winning point for her game.

Lunch with the Bocce Gang at Salute

The game started at ten and ended around twelve. The time frame makes for two games. Eight of us decided to have lunch at Salute Restaurante. We should have broken the group into fours’ as it took a long time to get a large table. In any event, we had another good time chatting not to mentioned a tasty lunch. Oh, I forgot to mention that Sally had her dog with her and “Angel” was quiet as a mouse. (Black Lab) Angel is being trained as a service dog and is doing very well in learning commands. I’ve mentioned before that there are many dogs at Trumbo Point campground. 99% are super good! We have one guy “Jose” who used to be a military dog trainer specializing in bomb sniffing dogs. He is retired now and has a dog (part German Shepherd and something else) that is amazing to watch, as he walks around the camp on a leash. I’m getting off track on our activities of the day. After lunch, we headed back to the ranch and I spent some time trying to get my new WiFi antenna up and running.

Technology…Great or Not So Great!

The antenna problem! I have a Mac Air laptop with no CD disk drive and Mac OS X version 10.10.5 What this means is I would have to download from the Internet the driver to enable the Mac to use the antenna. I’m still working on it! For the fun of it, I installed the driver on Sally’s laptop (Windows OS) and it works flawlessly. She can stream Net Flicks without any buffering problems. The antenna works up to 1500 feet away (over a quarter mile away from the camp repeater). I know I’ll get it up and running, but I’ll just have to go through the hassle of getting a “Certificate of Authenticity” in order for Apple to let me install the driver. Amen!

Update January 6th

The antenna problem will not go away. My update... Mac softwareis so new that the drivers for the antenna haven’t been created and will not be for some to time to come. I sold the antenna and the 32 foot extension. I have found a solution to the dilemma. Another manufacture makes an antenna which will also not work on my Mac, but here is the best solution I could have ever come up with. They sell the same antenna with a repeating router at the end. No drivers are needed and with this set up we’ll be able to get to Wifi with all our devices. This will be a great benefit when on the road with access to free wifi such as McDonald, Dunking Donuts and such. The antenna will reach a mile away providing it is in line of site. We will be able to be parked a good distance from the WiFi location and get on line easily. Here in Key West, we will be in our fifth wheel camper and not have to be sitting outside facing the GoWIFi antenna. Of course, all of this comes at a price, but in the long run we will save on phone data usage. This unit will also work in our truck camper. Pacific Coast Highway, next summer, here we come!

Update on Technology; 15 January 2016!

Patiently waiting for my wonder “Super USB WiFi” antenna and repeater to arrive by Fed X, from California, I’ve busy doing other projects such as selling antennas and installing them on RV’s here in the campground. No, I haven’t started a new business, but just selling my first antenna and also selling another guy’s antenna, who also had the same problem with the new Mac OS X 10.10.5 upgrade software. Well, to make a long story a little shorter, I received the antenna a couple of days ago and set it up. The antenna and repeater works fine except for one little problem. It doesn’t work here at the campground because the Navy “GoWiFi” does allow more than one Mac ID. I needed one for the Mac, one for the antenna and one for the repeater . I called GoWiFi Tech support and they will not budge on giving me more than one Mac ID. So I have a choice of keeping the antenna/router, or returning it to CCrane which will take it back. I did spend over an hour with them on the phone and they were very helpful in determining that everything was working correctly on their end. I will take the unit into town this afternoon and see how it works login in at a McDonalds. If it does work, I might keep it for the truck camper.

Weather Crimping our Style?

Wounded Warrior taking a break for lunch

Two days of clouds and showers…I’ll take that back, it’s been now nearly a week of overcast with rain off and on. Can you believe the temperature has gone down to 64 degrees at night! I know all of you (non) snow birds up north are laughing hysterically! It’s no laughing matter here in Key West when one has to wear long pants and a hoody!When you are in a camping mode down here, most of your activities are outside based! So what does one do if the weather is inclement? For starters, we down load books from our public library both from Berlin, NH and from the Navy’s online library system. Next, we gather up some of our cabin fever friends and skip over to Truman Annex to the Beach Patio Recreation and fitness center to select and watch a movie in their large comfortable recliners. Our latest movie view was “Steve Jobs” Apple computer story.

Lunch Break

In between the rain showers, we went and cheered the “Wounded Warriors Marathon”and got to talk to some very courageous warriors. One girl, with a leg missing, didn’t look older than 19 years old. It just makes you think of their sacrifice they endured for us.

Each Has a Story

We volunteered for the Key West Half Marathon coming up this Sunday. We will be giving out water at the half way point. To our surprise, we went to a pre-marathon gathering at Viva’s Bar on Duval Street. Drink tickets, meal and a very nice commemorative tee shirt was included. We were told that there will be an after marathon party at some pizza restaurant on Sunday afternoon. The marathon is rain or shine. We’ll be ready either way. Rapping up this “what are we up to blog” well, I’m here typing in our comfortable camper watching large flocks of birds enjoying the strong breeze, soaring nearly still in a distance. The warm front has brought back warm temperatures (75 degrees) at 10:50 this Friday morning.That is what we saw and did!